Posts made by neal085

@IrishTrumpeter

Most people start playing trumpet, and then immediately get intrigued by gear, especially mouthpieces, probably because it's easier and more fun than hours of hard practice, and you can do it anywhere. For example, you can look at gear online almost anytime, any place, even in a crowded restaurant, but should probably be discouraged from hours of trumpet practice in a crowded restaurant.

It is likely that you will eventually go on a MP safari, because no matter what anyone says, you will most likely feel the overwhelming need to satisfy your own curiosity. I only say that because I did that verbatim thing. Short version, I started with a Bach 3C, and took about a year to arrive at.... a 3C, albeit from a different manufacturer.

Regardless, this is one of the best things you could read to satisfy your curiosity, and could also save you a lot of money on mouthpieces.
https://trumpetboards.com/topic/173/jens-mouthpieces-sticky-your-mpc-is-too-big

My cousin, who is one of my best friends and also a former trumpet player, was always intrigued as a kid by the idea that people would actually pay money and go to great lengths to consume alcohol, ostensibly with a desire to consume o'er much of it. He never understood what the big deal was, since he knew his mom kept alcohol under the bathroom sink all the time. Why would anyone go out of their way to drink the stuff?

Thus beguiled to ascertain the magical essence of alcohol, he saw fit to sneak into the bathroom one morning and try this mysterious elixir for himself. We can all imagine his subsequent and immediate disillusionment with Isopropyl as a libation.

Anyway, that was 30 years ago, but if I could go back in time, I'd show him this study on the different types of alcohol to save him from such instant and painful regret.

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

-Puck, Midsummer Night's Dream

Swankiest nightclub in town is hopping one night when an Escalade pulls up front. A guy hops out with an entourage of smoking hot ladies and makes a grand entrance, tipping $100 bills to all the staff, buying drinks for everyone, but the most amazing thing about the guy is that his head is just a huge orange.

He soon becomes a regular, and the story is always the same; lavish spending, a litany of pricey vehicles, and he always has half a dozen beautiful women in tow. Yet the most amazing thing about him remains the fact that his head is just a giant orange.

One night the head bartender manages to get close to him, and pries the story from him.

"Well, one day I was walking down the beach and came across a lamp. It looked like it had some lettering on the side, so I tried to rub the sand off, and when I did, a genie popped out and granted me 3 wishes."

"Yes," says the breathless bartender, "and what happened?"

"For my first wish, I told the genie I wanted unlimited money. I've never wanted for cash since then."

"Wow," says the bartender, so then what happened?"

"Well, then I told the genie I wanted all the most beautiful women to be attracted to me. He granted that as my second wish."

"But what happened then," asked the bartender, now hanging on every word with bated breath.

"Well, that's were things went wrong, because I asked him to make my head a giant orange."

@Kehaulani not sure, but it made it interesting again.

How do you know a trombone player is at the door?

He comes in at the wrong time and can't find the key.

@Dr-GO , I can vociferously vouch for this endorsement of Torpedo cases. Great product.

@GeorgeB Yeah, ole Kirk has monster chops. Or at least that's what Warner Brothers told me.

@ROWUK agreed, sir. The Texas shutdown was fairly minimal, and we found it mostly relaxing. Got to know all our neighbors a lot better, played a lot of backyard baseball, and I found time to do some writing I'd been putting off for years. I actually worked through the whole thing, and it was really peaceful to have the roads to myself on the morning drive.

Discovered that professional sports don't really add that much value to my life, (I do miss baseball a bit), discovered that you save a lot of money by never eating out, and it was a lot easier to get together with many of our friends, because we didn't have a lot of the time constraints we'd normally have.

Schooling the kids from home was actually enjoyable for us, and we're seriously considering whether to even send them back to public school. Having them home all the time gets me and my wife more directly involved in their education, and the kids are a lot more involved in the daily chores and projects than they would normally be. All of that is of tremendous value to the family unit.

@Kehaulani , the settling of Hawaii is an amazing story. My wife and I spent a two-week anniversary trip on Kauai in 2010, and it was so fun that we did it again in 2011. Got bits and pieces of the islands' story from locals and a kayak guide (we kayaked the Na Pali coast), but I bought a book on it before we left. Just came across it again the other day.

@Kehaulani
I don't disagree there, but on that subject, I ran across this tidbit a while back from author Louis L'Amour, and thought it was interesting.

@Kehaulani

In Isaiah, it also mentions that God sits above the circle of the earth. Interesting verbiage in both instances.

@flugelgirl I'm not familiar with horn repair, but in the firearms industry it is common for customers to completely gum up the inner workings of a mechanism with incorrect cleaning products, or by mixing products, or just general poor maintenance.

It is also common for customers to then pretend like the problem was caused by something other than their maintenance habits.

On the trumpet oil, I've used both Ultra Pure and Monster in recent history, and have had good luck with both. I typically wipe out the valve block completely before applying oil.

Put another way, there are 170 users who have a combined 58 posts. That's a Tuesday afternoon for Kehaulani or Dr. GO.

I don't expect everyone to be garrulous, but I wonder what keeps them in the shadows.

And I did locate the Welcome thread under Announcements, but it has zero posts in it.

@Dr-GO That's pretty darn cool.

I remember dad having a pretty big set of electric trains, but I only remember it being set up once briefly when I was pretty young. I think he sold it all when we moved from Ft. Worth to Lubbock, (I was 6 at the time), and I believe it was a pretty valuable set.

@Tobylou8 an acquaintance of mine owns several fireworks stands, and he said they stayed sold out of everything and had to keep restocking. Said it was somewhat unparalleled in his fireworks-selling experience.

Glad we've had a ton of rain this year - no burn bans were in effect. We shot off quite a bit at our 4th gathering, although most of our stuff was leftover from last year. We bought a bunch last summer, but somehow didn't get a chance to shoot it off.

@Kehaulani meaning that performance specifically, or as a general statement when comparing his body of work with other artists?

That's great, Steve. I've been looking for sheet music for The Trio for years.

So I was scrolling through our current members, and it appears that roughly half of the TB members have never posted anything to the site. In the context of infusing fresh members with their thoughts and questions, could we add a Welcome/Introduce Yourself thread in its own category to the home page?

I remember there was one that was fairly visible on TM, and it seemed to help usher in the new users and make them feel comfortable to start posting on other threads.

If there is already such a thread on here, and I just missed it, please carry on, and/or make it more visible on the home page.

@Seth-of-Lagos

That's a great one - my dad had the soundtrack when we were kids. Went back and watched that movie again sometime last year. GBU puts both it's predecessors to shame, but the soundtrack is great.